Bishop said yes to scarf. Marine says “non”

The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, should have “stood up for western values” and shunned the Islamic headscarf during a recent visit to Iran, conservative commentator Andrew Bolt said.

Bishop followed local requirements legislating that women must cover their heads, wearing both a headscarf and a hat upon her arrival in the country.

Bolt said the requirement amounted to the “subjugation of women” and said the ensemble looked “ridiculous” on the foreign minister, who was in Iran for the first high-level meeting between Canberra and Tehran in 12 years.

Really, the hat looked even worse.

Bishop in Iran.

It was as if Bishop was trying to pretend she was making a fashion statement instead of a statement of submission.

But when Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front, visited the Grand Mufti of Lebanon this week she walked out rather than submit.

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The French far-right presidential candidate walked out of the offices of Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, the grand mufti of Lebanon, after being told she could not see him unless she covered her head.

The incident is likely to bolster Ms Le Pen’s popularity among National Front supporters, many of whom are hostile towards Islam. But it may undermine her attempt to portray herself, during a two-day visit to Lebanon, as a serious future world leader, not least because the trip included her first meeting with a head of state — President Aoun.

I rather think the voters will appreciate a leader upholding her own (liberated) customs than submitting to another’s.